Syncing GAU Designations from Salesforce

WeGive and Salesforce sync GAUs (General Accounting Units) and their associated Allocations bidirectionally. This article explains how that sync works and how to set it up correctly.

For a deeper walkthrough of how WeGive handles donations that split across multiple GAUs (including recurring donations), see Multi-Designation Donations with NPSP.

How GAU sync works

WeGive Designations map to Salesforce GAUs (npsp__General_Accounting_Unit__c). When the integration is enabled, WeGive and Salesforce stay in sync on GAU records in both directions:

• When you create or update a Designation in WeGive, the corresponding GAU in Salesforce is updated.

• When you create or update a GAU in Salesforce, WeGive pulls the change during the next 15-minute sync cycle.

WeGive stores the Salesforce GAU ID on each Designation record internally. This ID is what links the two records across systems and ensures Allocations attach to the correct GAU.

How Fund Allocations sync

When a donation is designated to a fund, WeGive creates an npsp__Allocation__c record in Salesforce linked to the Opportunity. If multi-designation is enabled on your organization, WeGive creates one Allocation per fund per donation, and the same applies to recurring donations (Allocations are written on the Recurring Donation and inherited to each generated Opportunity).

Field-level mapping for an Allocation record:

WeGive is the source of truth for Allocations. When a donation is updated, WeGive replaces the entire Allocations array in Salesforce rather than merging individual changes. Likewise, when Salesforce data is pulled back into WeGive, any WeGive Allocations not present in the Salesforce record are removed.

For complete coverage of one-time vs recurring multi-designation behavior, prerequisites, and donor-side setup, see Multi-Designation Donations with NPSP.

Required configuration: trigger handler exclusions

NPSP includes built-in automation that auto-creates and manages GAU Allocations whenever an Opportunity is inserted. When WeGive inserts its own Allocations, NPSP may delete them, causing ENTITY_IS_DELETED errors on subsequent updates.

To prevent this, you must exclude the WeGive integration user from three NPSP trigger handlers before going live. See Required Exclusions for the full instructions.

If you are already seeing ENTITY_IS_DELETED errors in your integration logs, see NPSP GAU Allocations Deleted by Salesforce: ENTITY_IS_DELETED Error for the root cause and resolution steps.

Setting up a GAU lookup field for historical transactions (optional)

If you want to pull GAU designation data from Salesforce for historical Opportunities that predate the WeGive integration, you can set up a lookup field to bridge the two systems:

1. In Salesforce, create a lookup field on the Opportunity object. Name it something like WeGive GAU ID and configure it to reference npsp__General_Accounting_Unit__c.

2. In WeGive, add a mapping rule that imports this field from the Salesforce Opportunity to the corresponding WeGive transaction field. Set the direction to Import (Salesforce to WeGive) or Both depending on your needs.

3. For historical transactions, do a mass update in Salesforce to populate the WeGive GAU ID field on existing Opportunity records.

4. Trigger a manual sync from WeGive (Integrations to Salesforce to Sync From Salesforce to Sync since last update). WeGive will pull in the GAU ID values and update the corresponding transactions.

5. For future transactions, the sync runs automatically.

Troubleshooting

Common GAU and Allocation sync issues: